PlayStation Portable

From Sega Retro

The PlayStation Portable (プレイステーションポータブル) (officially abbreviated as PSP) is a handheld video game console released by Sony Computer Entertainment in late 2004. It stands as Sony's first foray into the handheld video game market, something traditionally dominated by Nintendo. It was succeeded by the PlayStation Vita in late 2011.

Contents

Overview

The PlayStation Portable was marketed as being a handheld capable of playing "home console quality" games - technically superior to the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS but slightly less capable than a PlayStation 2. Though the console generated a significant amount of buzz upon release, the PSP spent most of its existence trailing behind Nintendo for one reason or another.

Multiple variants of the PSP exist, the most significant being the download-only PSP Go, released in 2009 (which ultimately failed to generate much interest). The system uses a proprietary disc format known as "Universal Media Disc" or UMD - the first handheld to opt for discs over cartridges, and often cited as one of the PSP's most significant failings due to the added load times and unreliability of the format.

Though sales were relatively strong for the PSP, the console began to lose ground to the Nintendo DS during its first two years of service, and remained in a distant second in most regions of the world. In Japan and other Asian regions, PSP sales frequently outperformed other systems due to the popularity of games such as the Monster Hunter franchise, but in the west the PSP (like its successor, the Vita), is cited for having two few truly unique games to take advantage of the hardware - much of the output from developers and publishers involved watered-down console games or spin-offs, leading to claims of an unoriginal library.

Sega Support

Sega supported the PlayStation Portable upon release, publishing more than fifty games for the handheld. Like other publishers, Sega chose to stock the PSP with games that could also be found on other systems, but although much of the library is not exclusive to the console, more games were published by the company than for the Nintendo DS.

Perhaps one of Sega's biggest successes on the platform was the 2010 release of Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA, which spawned an entire franchise in the years which followed. Sega dropped the platform in 2011 in favor of the next generation of handhelds.